Hello all, I have followed this thread with interest, I myself am very disappointed in the policy change of Altium management and their customer treatment.
I would like to express my feelings about it. When you commit yourself to a supplier of CAD software it is a long term investment, so you try to select a supplier you hope you can rely on for years. Changing again after a year when you feel brutalized by your supplier is no real option because of the financial consequences and the loss of time. The investment in time (money) learning to use the package exceeds the cost of the package itself, at least in my part of the world. Altium has seriously damaged the trust that I gave them when I bought the package a little more than a year ago. Altium showed very little consideration with their existing (subscribing) DXP2004 customers. One of the reasons I have chosen DXP2004 is the ability to Live Design FPGA's, I was only waiting on support of Actel ProAsic3 series, which came with AD6. My Software Insurance subscription promised me to get an upgrade to the newest releases without additional payment. But what I got was in fact a downgraded version that was not able to do FPGA Live Design anymore. With AD6, this is only possible in the full version (formerly called Nexar). I am fully convinced that I have the legal right to receive an upgrade from Altium that includes Live Design FPGA without any extra payment. The Altium management decided that there is no license option anymore to do FPGA Live Design without Processor Cores (the former Nexar). I don't want to argue about that decision, it's Altium's full right to choose for this policy. Because Altium is unable to deliver what I have the legal right to and what I fully paid for, in my view Altium can only fully satisfy subscribing DXP2004 customers by upgrading them to the full version, including FPGA Cores. Only that way, subscribing customers get what they already paid for. The fact that we then have to pay a higher yearly subscription is already a drawback of the full package, if you don't use the Cores (yet). As far as Cores in FPGA's are concerned, I am convinced that it will be very interesting in some years from now, when FPGA's like the Actel Fusion family become available. Only then, with lots of Flash memory for storing the program is on-chip, you can work without a databus and use all pins for I/O (and keep your IP save). If you need a databus and external memory, the advantage is minimal. After complaining to Altium, in two steps I got an offer that saves me about half of the upgrade price. I need to decide soon if I agree with this offer or if I will demand my legal right to get it without further payment. And as an ultimate consequence to start legal action, which I would not like but am quite convinced I will win. If I decide to pay half the price for an upgrade to the full function license, the unhappiness with the whole situation will still take a long time to fade away and probably never will be fully forgotten. I don't belong to the people who think that a buyer of software can demand a bug free package, or a guarantee that bugs will be repaired free of charge forever. Let's be realistic, if this would be the case we would have to pay a much higher price for such a package and that's not in our interest at all. To stay in business, also important for its customers, a company needs to make profit. My experience with Altium so far is that they are very responsive to customers in solving their problems with the package. And that they put a lot of effort in making their software better. Finally, when walking away from a supplier of CAD software, it would only make any sense if you can choose a better one, is there any? In my view there are no "perfect" suppliers of CAD software, they all have their drawbacks and bad policies, even the biggest ones (or perhaps especially they?). So we have to choose among the less "bad". Further, it's bad management to make decisions based on emotions. With that in mind, I can be very annoyed and feel brutalized about the treatment by Altium and still happily work with their software. AD6 has some very good improvements that make everyday use much more efficient. Based on this experience, I would not like to go without a subscription. Best regards, Ton ____________________________________________________________ You are subscribed to the PEDA discussion forum To Post messages: mailto:[email protected] Unsubscribe and Other Options: http://techservinc.com/mailman/listinfo/peda_techservinc.com Browse or Search Old Archives (2001-2004): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] Browse or Search Current Archives (2004-Current): http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]
